A television tracking system has been developed to measure the motion of beating heart cells in vitro. The performance of these cells is used to monitor the presence of a circulating myocardial depressant substance in humans with septic shock. Beating myocardial cells are placed in a petri dish on the stage of an inverted microscope and imaged by a television camera. When serum from patients is added to the medium surrounding the beating cells, the performance of the cells is affected, if the circulating myocadial depressant substance is present. Motion voltages developed by the closed-loop television tracking system are processed on-line by a PC computer with A/D and D/A capability. Baseline data, without patient serum, is obtained by a computer-controlled flushing system.